NCAA Tournament 2015: Best and worst from Thursday’s Sweet 16 games

After three long, dark, cold, lonely nights without any NCAA Tournament hoops, the sports world got its fix Thursday night. It wasn’t exactly Grade A stuff -- none of the four games were decided by fewer than 7 points -- but it got the job done.

There were some pretty lofty expectations set by the tournament’s opening weekend, but you can’t expect to take time off and then jump right back into things as if nothing ever changed. You’ve gotta dip that toe back in first.

Here’s a look at all the toe-dipping that took place on Thursday ... I hope you didn’t just see this without reading the two paragraphs before it, because it looks inappropriate on its own. It’s not inappropriate. Whatever.

(1) Wisconsin 79, (4) North Carolina 72 (West)

The dream seemed to be fading with every missed three-point attempt and every made North Carolina transition basket on the other end, but somehow, the veteran Badgers found a way to keep dancing with a 79-72 victory over the Tar Heels.

As mentioned before, the loss snapped North Carolina’s 11-game Sweet 16 winning streak, which had dated all the way back to 1993. The last time UNC tasted defeat in a Sweet 16 game was in another 1 vs. 4 matchup, an 80-73 loss to Ohio State in 1992. The Tar Heels won the national title a year later.

On the flip side, the victory improved Wisconsin to 33-0 this season when owning a lead with five minutes to play. The Badgers are also a ridiculous 116-3 over the last five seasons in those situations.

SB Nation presents: How Wisconsin will win the 2015 NCAA Tournament

Kentucky

Where do you start here?

The Wildcats opened the game on an 18-2 run and it felt like they basically could have named the final score at an point in the game after that. They wound up winning by 39, matching Louisville’s 103-64 win over Arizona in 2009 for the largest margin of victory ever in a Sweet 16 game.

When Kentucky shoots the ball well, they’re virtually impossible to beat. After an off-shooting afternoon against Cincinnati, West Virginia bore the brunt of the law of averages. UK drilled 14 of its first 23 shots (60.9 percent), while the Mountaineers misfired on 21 of their 26 attempts (19.2 percent). The result was a 44-18 halftime advantage for Kentucky which probably still looked closer than the actual game was.

It probably didn’t matter much that West Virginia freshman Daxter Miles proclaimed on Wednesday that Kentucky was “gonna be 36-1” a day later, but it’s also pretty clear that it didn’t help. Miles finished the night with no points and one rebound, and afterward, the Cats made it evident that they had been aware of the proclamation.

Well, at least now everyone else knows that strategy’s out the window. You never know until you try.

Wichita State

Despite being a No. 7 seed squaring off against third-seeded Notre Dame, Wichita State was actually a two-point favorite on Thursday night (the Shockers were also a one-point favorite over No. 2 seed Kansas last weekend). Gregg Marshall’s team never looked the part, falling behind the Irish 18-5 early on and then playing from behind for the rest of the evening.

Even after Wichita was able to claw its way back into the game, the Notre Dame offense never stopped firing. The Irish connected on 18 of their final 24 shots (75.0 percent), building a lead that eventually grew as large as 19.

Sam Dekker, Wisconsin

It might be hard for some to believe that heading into Thursday’s game, Dekker’s previous career-high was just 22 points, a mark he set earlier this season against Penn State. He changed that with a 23-point effort against North Carolina, which very well may have been the best performance of his college career. For the tournament, Dekker is averaging a team-best 20.0 ppg.

America’s latest March sweetheart rounded out his college career by notching a team-high in points (17) and rebounds (10) as he almost single-handedly put Xavier in a position where it had a chance to stun second-seeded Arizona.

We could have gone the corny route and just put “Kentucky’s whole team” or something here, but we’re better than that. That’s why you’re here. Lyles was the best of the best for UK on Thursday, showing off his entire ridiculous skill-set to finish with 14 points and seven rebounds.

Fred VanVleet, Wichita State

If this was VanVleet’s final college game, then he certainly went out fighting. The floor general scored a game-high 25 points to go with six rebounds, three assists and two steals.

1. Notre Dame

College hoops fans have been hopeful all season long that the Fighting Irish would eventually make a deep run in the tournament, simply because they play a brand of basketball that’s fun to watch and is good for the sport to spotlight. Those wishes have been answered, as Mike Brey finally has his guys into a regional final, the first time Notre Dame has been there since 1979.

It’s an especially feel-good story when you toss in the fact that Brey’s mother died of a heart attack on the morning of his team’s win over Butler last Saturday. The next hurdle in the race to keep those positive vibes flowing is the biggest one there is.

2. Bob Huggins standing up for Daxter Miles after the game

You always love to see a coach standing up for his players, especially when the action in question, while certainly juvenile, was not nearly as egregious as some people are making it out to be.

This was the play of the night:

1. The constant dropping of the “Matt Stainbrook is an Uber driver in his spare time” story

Yeah, we’ve heard about it. Pretty confident there are at least 9,000 other interesting tidbits about Matt Stainbrook, so let’s start diving into those now that the Uber well is dry.

This is legitimately the one thing about Matt Stainbrook that won’t be missed ... and I think I speak for everyone when I say that we’d all still be more than willing to put up with it, if it meant we got just one more night with the Stain Train.

2. West Virginia players about to check in tripping a referee

It wasn’t intentional or anything, the ‘Eers just couldn’t do anything right.

3. The lack of an exciting finish

Seriously, we just came home after serving three (days), and you greet us hand-holding.

There were no final scores closer than seven, and an average margin of victory of 14.8 ppg. Sure, Kentucky’s 39-point win makes that look worse than it actually was, but whatever, don’t blame this all on Kentucky, other three games. You’re exciting as a tournament day, and you’re un-exciting as a tournament day. That’s how it works.

At some point, Kentucky players just decided to start dunking on each other.

1. “The next step is a big one. The fact that we’re playing Wisconsin ... it’s almost as if we had a summer to think about it, and we have to somehow make that to our advantage.” -- Arizona coach Sean Miller

3. “Is there a bar there?” -- Notre Dame coach Mike Brey after showing up early to the postgame press conference and being told he could hang in the waiting room

We started with 351, now just 12 remain. Let’s hit it.

SB Nation presents: Nobody knows who will come out of the East Region